Every new console needs a mascot game. One of those “E for Everyone” titles that families can huddle around. It stars a character that can be an ambassador for the system. Ideally, the mascot game shows off the power of… Continue Reading →

Every new console needs a mascot game. One of those “E for Everyone” titles that families can huddle around. It stars a character that can be an ambassador for the system. Ideally, the mascot game shows off the power of the device while being accessible to players of all skill levels. Doing the former is fairly straight-forward, but the latter takes some finesse.

And that’s the position Sony’s Japan Studio is in with Knack. It’s a platformer-brawler that will be released at the PlayStation 4’s launch. It’s a good-looking game with a title character that shows off what the system can do handling dozens of swirling polygons in its title character. As I wrote before, it features a social element and Katamari Damacy-ish traits. There’s even a hinted at companion app.

Openings for attack are easier to spot in Easy Mode rather than Normal Mode.

CHALLENGE IN CHALLENGE: But the challenge that game director Mark Cerny and his team faced with Knack is making it accessible to different audiences. He says there are two demographics. “One is the core gamer drawn to mascot games,” he said. “It’s designed to be challenging.” The other is for novice players who have never picked up a controller in their life. “Easy mode is a different game,” he said.

I had some hands-on time with Knack and the change in difficulty gives the project two distinct feels. On Normal, it’s comparable to Bayonetta, where players have to read an enemies moves and react quickly, pulling off a bullet-time dodge and three-button combos. It can be punishing and players will die A LOT. On Easy, the game feels more like a Skylanders title. Enemy movements are slower giving players a window to attack. Obstacles aren’t as punishing.

“Making a game easy and still making it fun is hard to,” Cerny said. With that in mind, the developer went to great lengths to figure out how to overcome the intimidation factor of a controller. One of the things, Japan Studio did was create a custom DualShock 4 that was 1.5 times bigger than the consumer one. It was meant to give developers an idea of how big a controller would be to a child. From there, they discovered that the shoulder buttons would be too far to reach and designed the game so that it used the face buttons and analog sticks.

On higher levels of difficulty, dodging is key to surviving attacks and going on the offensive.

CO-OP MODE: Another area they worked to make the game more accessible is by adding a co-op mode. A second player can drop in and take on the role of Robo-Knack. The character can attack and perform moves just like the single-player, but the big difference is that Robo-Knack has a support role. When Knack is low on health, Robo-Knack can offer up some of its relics and heal him. (If you didn’t know, Knack is made up of relics and every time he is damaged, he loses some of those pieces. If he gains more relics, he gains mass, power and health.)

On the hard-core side, there’s a hard mode and another level of difficulty above that. In those modes, Knack can die via one-hit kills, and players will have to figure out how to use the dodge move more often to get in range for attacks. There’s more strategy when it comes to battles. In addition, there are variant Knack characters that players can unlock. For example, collect 15 ruby relics and players can access Vampire Knack, which lets players get health every time they eliminate a foe, but at the same time, they have a weakness to sunlight.

]]>http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2013/10/22/how-a-change-in-difficulty-makes-knack-a-different-game-preview/feed/2ScreenShot_07_1920x1080ScreenShot_04_1920x1080ScreenShot_03_1920x1080By: TwitterButtons.comE3 2013: Knack on the PS4 is a brawler with a Katamari twisthttp://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2013/06/17/e3-2013-knack-ps4/
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2013/06/17/e3-2013-knack-ps4/#commentsTue, 18 Jun 2013 06:42:50 +0000http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/?p=25664

When Knack was first shown at the PlayStation 4 reveal, it didn’t move the needle for me. On the surface, it looked like a fairly conventional kids game along the lines of Spyro or Crash Bandicoot. Sure the visuals looked… Continue Reading →

When Knack was first shown at the PlayStation 4 reveal, it didn’t move the needle for me. On the surface, it looked like a fairly conventional kids game along the lines of Spyro or Crash Bandicoot. Sure the visuals looked Pixar quality, but the gameplay appeared conventional. At best, it was an revamped Vectorman.

But at E3 2013, I had some hands-on time with the title developed by Sony’s Japanese Studio and came away a little more optimistic. Knack puts players in the role of the title character, a hero who can absorb objects from the world around him. Made in a lab by a good-hearted scientist a la Dr. Light, Knack is sent out to save the world against a Goblin invasion.

GROWING THEM BIG: Game designer Mark Cerny helped guide the development of the project, which plays like a God of War action game with a dose Katamari. Players perform combos on goblins and hit the right analog stick to dodge counterattacks. Along the way, they can collect items such as sunstones that power up their onslaught. Objects litter the area and they can be smashed into debris, which Knack collects to boost its mass.

Destroy enough items and Knack can grow up to 30 feet tall and take on monsters of comparable size. You’re playing an adventure title through the city streets and all of sudden it can turn into a giant monster game. Knack promises to play with scale in the same way Katamari Damacy does.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SMASH: Adding depth to the gameplay, Knack can absorb materials in the environment and incorporate it into his attacks or body. For example, fighting in an arctic environment, our hero can break icicles and add them to his fists to improve his punches. In a museum level, he can add a transparent piece so that he turns invisible. That allows him to sneak behind lasers or gain access to air ducts to flip open switches.

Yes, there are slight puzzle elements to the level design that breaks up the constant brawling. To push more variety, Japan Studio also hid secret rooms full of treasure through the levels. They’re opened by punching walls or taking the less-obvious path.

SOCIAL FEATURES: Speaking of treasure, Japan Studio adds a social element to how prizes in chests are distributed. Throughout the campaign, players can put together devices that offer bonuses. But before they can do that they need parts like crystals or a piece of harvester. The rub is that items are randomly generated in chests and sometimes they won’t get what they need. No problem though.

Players can scan their friends who have played Knack and see what they received in their treasure chest. It may be the item they need to complete a contraption and they can switch it out for that. Their friends won’t lose the item. It just opens another option for players.

After playing two short levels, my opinion on Knack is turning. I’m not sure if it’ll be a great game, but it seems to be more than a run-of-the-mill brawler. There’s enough creativity in the gameplay that it has me interested. It’s going to be up to the level design and how Japan Studio uses that sense of scale to enliven the campaign. Like the hero itself, there’s potential in the game. I just hope the team can unlock it when Knack is released later this year.